Chapter One

Patrick Baker shifted position against the cold metal of his locker. He’d been miserable last year, sandwiched between a kid who smelled like forgotten gym clothes and a girl who’d made him the punchline for her friends.

The corner locker saved him from all that.

Someone slammed a door down the hall, making him flinch. The morning announcements crackled over the PA system, but Patrick barely registered them—just another voice droning about another ordinary day he wouldn’t be sticking around for.

Perfect reason to ditch this place, if Logan would just hurry up and get here.

Patrick checked his phone. No messages, so the plan was still on.

Logan would show up and shoot his shot with Oriana Valente, and they’d all skip out to the lake instead of sitting around in boring classes all day.

A day at the lake sounded dope. And today was the only one that Oriana was likely to ditch, since it was her birthday. Even her super-strict parents had to give her a free pass today.

Patrick crossed one sneakered foot over the other. That was probably how Logan would wait. Logan Nagle was the king of chill. Easy, when you were super smart like him. Easier still when girls watched you from under their lashes when you passed. When their giggling wasn’t because you did something stupid or looked like a nerd.

Except Logan didn’t even seem to notice them.

Come on, man. This is soooo boring.

Patrick counted the doors up the hall again. Two classrooms on his left, the music room, and the theater before the main staircase. Two classrooms on his right, a bathroom, the offices—the nurse, the principal, the assistant principal, and the school secretary.

Behind him, a gaggle of cool kids claimed the base of the bell tower as their meeting place. They could keep it. Patrick didn’t think the three-story tower was fun or mysterious on any level. Just really freaking spooky.

One by one, students came into the building, swiping their IDs through security, but still no Logan. He’d said he had a surefire way to get past the scanners.

The entry hall was now filled with noisy chatterers, silent phone zombies, and wannabe DJs nodding to beats only they could hear. No one paid Patrick any attention.

Just like every other day of the week.

Not like Logan. He’d probably swoop in, and half the girls in the hallway would agree to bail on classes and head to the lake. Logan tended to draw attention. Maybe straitlaced Oriana would go to the lake with him even if it wasn’t her birthday.

But if she didn’t want to go, Patrick and Logan would have loads of time to catch each other up on their latest coding challenges. So long as Logan didn’t get hung up on all things Oriana.

Patrick was sick of hearing him obsess over her.

He checked his phone again.

Three minutes until the bell, and still no sign of him.

And then Patrick spotted Logan tailgating someone at the ID scanners so no one would question him being there. He was easy to see—taller than most everyone, apart from the basketball players.

Logan dashed between the phone zombies and matched Patrick’s what’s up? grin. But instead of stopping, he went right past him, beelining for Oriana Valente with a nod for Patrick to follow.

Oriana was walking to class with a girl who’d just started at Sherwood West. Patrick had forgotten her name. Something flowery.

The new girl hobbled along on crutches from some kind of sporting injury. She and Oriana were talking and laughing, and Oriana was carrying her backpack.

Oriana shook her dark curly hair away from her face, and in that moment, Patrick got why Logan was into her.

She was pretty. Like, really pretty. And from what he knew, she was friendly to everyone too. Not laughing at him was a big thing for sure.

Being a computer nerd had its upsides, but interest from girls wasn’t one of them. Only a few even took computer science classes, and some of them weren’t into boys to begin with.

If Patrick could’ve had even half of Logan’s looks and charm, he might’ve tried for someone like Oriana too.

His face flushed at the realization that if Oriana really did come to the lake with them, she might invite the new girl. Lily? Daisy?

And he’d have to talk to her while Logan did his thing with Oriana.

Patrick shot a sideways look at the new girl. She gave him a curious smile.

Rose. That’s it.

The way she dug in with her crutches suggested she wasn’t as fragile as she seemed.

If she comes, too, that’s something I can ask about. Her injury.

Logan intercepted the two girls and offered to carry both backpacks. They smiled, and Oriana handed them over, so maybe his charm was working.

Time to join the fun, I guess.

Patrick shoved off the lockers and headed toward the group. “Hey, Log—”

A huge crack-bang ripped through the hallway.

What the hell?

He whipped around as a white flash erupted, leaving purple spots dancing in his vision. The acrid smell of sulfur and gunpowder burned his nostrils.

Another blast echoed from behind him, followed by explosions and sparks and smoke. Patrick squinted, eyes stinging.

Through ribbons of coiling haze, two guys marched from the base of the bell tower with combat rifles slung across their chests. Shit, they looked like they’d stepped right out of a video game, dressed in coveralls like the school custodians.

But their faces…

What the fuck was wrong with their faces? Patrick blinked. Was he seeing right?

They were wearing grumpy-baby masks. Oversize latex infant faces with downturned mouths and furrowed brows, cheeks puffed out in a permanent tantrum. Fluorescent lights caught the dull matte of the latex, casting unnatural shadows across the exaggerated frowns.

Hollow, possessed dolls come to life.

The taller of the two flung his arm forward again and again. A second later, the world erupted with explosion after explosion. Patrick clapped his hands to his ears. The smell of gunpowder roiled all around.

Cloaked in all that smoke, the guys disappeared as if this were all just a bad magic trick.

Then came another sound, this one sharper, more mechanical. One that belonged in video games, not the hallway of Patrick’s school. More frightening than the concussive blast of fireworks.

Gunfire.

“Lockdown!” The frantic shout from Mrs. Carlson, the school secretary, came from right beside Patrick. “Get down and—”

Heat whizzed past Patrick’s ear, followed by a crack like a mini sonic boom.

Mrs. Carlson fell heavily to the shiny tiled floor. One of her shoes flew off. Her toenails were painted bright pink.

Patrick realized what had happened, but slowly, his brain sloshing through mud.

She’d been shot. Patrick had heard a bullet, a real one, right by his ear. It’d barely missed him.

Everything was happening in slow motion.

Everything was happening at double speed.

Arm over arm, Mrs. Carlson commando-crawled away from Patrick toward the office, leaving a bright-red smear on the floor. Mr. Moodie, the custodian who loved the polishing machine, wouldn’t appreciate that. In her wake, the smear got broader and brighter.

“In here!” Mrs. Driggers, the school nurse, rushed from the doorway of the infirmary to pick up a sophomore boy trampled in the rush to get away. But she jerked and fell backward. Red bloomed over the front of her light-blue scrubs, camouflaging the burgundy lettering of the school’s name.

Classroom doors slammed. Students screamed. The world had gone crazy.

“Patrick!” Logan’s booming voice broke through the shrieking. “Get the fuck down, man!”

Right. What was he thinking? Mrs. Carlson had said it. He knew what to do.

“Here. In here.” Logan shed the backpacks and pulled at the door of the closest classroom, but it was already locked.

“Rose, we have to run.” Oriana sounded calmer than she had any right to. “I’ll help you. We can make it to another classroom.”

Better than that. They were only four doors away from the main entrance, and the gunfire coming from the opposite end of the hall had stopped.

How long did they have before it started again?

They started blindly down the hall toward the exit, with Rose shuffling fast on her crutches. Dissipating smoke ebbed and flowed, turning the horror movie around them into a kaleidoscope of shocking images.

The bright yellow of an abandoned backpack. A girl lying face down, one hand curled up, showing she’d painted every other nail a deep blue. A smashed phone. Vice Principal Godfrey’s terrible comb-over flicked in the wrong direction, the bald patch he’d fooled no one about now furrowed by the path of a bullet.

And everywhere, the deep red of spilled blood.

The metallic stink of death.

Another crack sounded behind them, followed by the ping of metal on metal.

Rose collapsed, her crutches flying from her grasp.

“Rose!” Oriana helped Logan pull Rose to her feet.

Patrick dodged behind them to snatch up her crutches. One was useless, split in two. He handed Rose the good one. As she fumbled to take it, her blue eyes were wide, terrified. Logan intercepted the crutch and instead put his arm around Rose’s waist.

“Lean on me.”

“And me.” Oriana grabbed her other side. “We’ve got you. Pick your feet up. We can carry you.”

Then the unlikeliest sound echoed behind them.

Laughter.

“Run, porcellini, run.” The grumpy-baby mask muffled the shooter’s singsong voice.

Patrick turned.

Through trailing smoke, he caught glimpses of the mask, its awful grimace aimed their way as the shooter stalked them. He lifted his rifle. Aimed at Patrick.

Patrick dodged out around his friends.

Come on, you piece of shit. Chase me. Not them.

A crack sounded right beside Patrick. Again, the bullet shot past him close enough to displace the air.

Words from the active shooter drills he’d practiced rapped at him as if tattooing themselves onto his brain.

We’re supposed to run. Hide. Fight.

But Rose couldn’t do any of that.

Run. Hide. Fight.

Patrick ran. Or tried to.

Instead, he slipped, slid, and fell heavily onto his palms. Nothing broken, probably. No time to check. He sprang right back up, though his feet skidded again. The front entrance was ahead of him. Just three doors away.

Pain, sharp and hot, tore through his back, sending him sprawling onto the floor. Patrick sucked in air, trying to ignore the burn. His legs wouldn’t do what he wanted.

Come on!

He had to get up. He was lying in what he thought was Mrs. Carlson’s blood smear, trailing past them toward the office.

But he couldn’t see her now. While they’d gathered up, started down the hall, and messed with Rose’s crutch, she’d gotten to safety. He could too.

Patrick pulled himself forward, arm over arm. Just like she’d shown him.

Another lance of pain ripped through his body. His scream choked to nothing. His head weighed a hundred pounds, too heavy to hold up. Beneath him, the floor cooled his temple, soothing the agony. Colors began fading.

The sounds of gunfire had silenced. Perhaps they were reloading. The front doors were so close. Patrick wished he could make his legs work to push himself forward.

Just another second of rest. After that, he’d have enough energy to pull himself to safety.

Patrick closed his eyes. At the noise of more gunfire, he flicked them open again. The front doors glowed like the brightest light he’d ever seen. He reached forward, grasping at tendrils of light.

All he had to do was grab the doors, and he’d be safe.

Chapter Two

K-9 Detective Indira Reign finished setting up her laptop with the presentation she’d prepared for the Sherwood County High School West freshman class. She scrolled back to the first slide and hit Pause.

Ready to go.

Behind her, Broc, her Belgian Malinois, sat patiently, tongue out, as he studied the wooden balance benches standing parallel to each other in the gym.

Indie scratched him behind one ear. “What do you think?”

He cocked his head to one side.

“Too easy.”

His comment dropped right into her head and made her smile. They might’ve only been a family for a few weeks, but they had one heck of a connection.

He sneezed. “It smells funny here.”

Indie sniffed and only caught smells she expected. Canvas and rope, vinyl floor mats, and the all too memorable, and questionable, scents that accrued in a high school gymnasium.

Even at the private school she’d attended, the gyms had held a distinct and easily recognizable odor.

“Gyms always smell the same.” She moved one bench away from the other end of the formation, increasing the span Broc would have to jump. “What do you say to eight feet?”

If dogs could frown, he did.

“Yes, I know you can jump farther.” She widened the span by another foot.

Sherwood High West’s entire freshman class began filing in through the gym doors at one end of the building, bringing a wave of noise into the cavernous space. A few young teens were loud enough on their own. Two hundred and fifty-three of them in an enclosed space put Indie’s teeth on edge.

Two teachers Indie had already met, Carrie Luce, who’d arranged this presentation, and Ed Hawly, a sub, directed the students onto the wooden bleachers. Most of them filed into the seats, but some continued to swat at each other or otherwise act like kids.

Carrie raised her voice above the din. “Everyone, sit down quietly, please. We can’t begin until you’re all seated.”

Ed joined her, waving his hands in the air like an air traffic controller. The group of fifteen Sherwood Cadet Corps students—who’d organized the demonstration as part of their community service activities—was easy to spot. Wearing gray-and-yellow shirts, they took seats in the first row, grinning and watching Indie and Broc.

Indie made eye contact with a few cadets and wondered which might end up wearing uniforms themselves one day. Behind them, Carrie and Ed attempted to tamp down the ongoing shenanigans.

Broc sneezed. And again.

“You okay, bud? That’s a few now.” Indie glanced around, wondering what in this particular gym was irritating his nose.

Crouching, she inspected his snout for an injury or maybe a bit of plant matter that might’ve gotten lodged in his nostrils. She didn’t find anything.

“Yellow stuff.”

“Yellow stuff” was normally lemon, but it couldn’t be in the gym. “In here?”

As Indie straightened, Broc tipped his head to one side, his ears perking up even straighter than usual.

“Did you see that?” one of the cadets shouted to her. “His ears are moving independently. That’s so cool.”

No, it was not.

“Noises. Firecrackers. Gunshots.”

Indie heard it a second after Broc’s warning.

Gunfire and screaming in the hall outside the gym.

She grabbed her shoulder mic and called it in as much to the teachers as to Dispatch.

“Active shooter, Sherwood High West!”

After a heartbeat of frozen silence, the room erupted into chaos. The teachers shouted urgent instructions as over two hundred bodies with their assorted backpacks scrambled and hid.

They’d drilled for this scenario.

Indie remembered the same drills all through her childhood.

Find safety. If running isn’t an option, we hide. And if it comes to it, we fight.

She hated that these young kids had learned this, but she knew it would save some lives today. And she and Broc were there to help.

“Carrie, secure the doors at this end.”

The teacher acknowledged Indie’s command, which allowed Ed to keep control of the students scurrying for shelter.

Indie led Broc to secure the far doors, which opened to a covered walkway outside the school. These doors could mean escape for these kids or entry for a second shooter.

Her radio crackled. “All units, active shooter reported at Sherwood High West. Please respond.” Though Indie hadn’t met Cricket Bailey face-to-face, the dispatcher sounded a lot less calm than she would’ve expected, given her experience.

If Cricket was rattled, that sent a twinge of nervousness through Indie. Everyone needed to be on their A game right now.

As deputies reported in over the radio, the variables of Indie’s situation arranged themselves in her mind like pieces on a chess board.

Two hundred fifty-three freshmen.

Two known teachers.

Unknown number of shooters.

Multiple entry points to secure.

She keyed her radio, mentally mapping the school’s layout as she spoke, wishing she had more to share. “K-9 Detective Indie Reign. I’m inside Sherwood West with Officer Broc. I need as much information as you can give me.”

“Hundreds of calls about shots fired. The only thing I know for sure is the sheriff is on his way.”

The least the callers could’ve done was give authorities some basic information. Flying blind threw Indie off-kilter, to say the least.

She rattled off what little she did know about the situation right now. “We’ll do what we can to assist from inside.”

The school’s alarm blared in three sharp bursts, followed by a long one. Then the PA system blurted to life.

“This is Mrs. Carlson. The school is in lockdown. This is not a drill.” She spoke calmly, though she gasped for breath between each sentence. “Initiate active shooter protocols. Lockdown. This is not a drill.”

“Indie?”

Indie had to focus hard to hear Cricket over the burgeoning chaos of shouts, screams, and thumping feet as the students charged down the steps and under the cover of the bleachers.

“Go ahead.”

“Status there?”

She checked the rear doors and ensured they were secure. “We can’t totally lock down the gymnasium yet. More students and teachers are coming in. A lot more than the two hundred fifty-three students I started with.”

“Let me know when you have a confirmed total.” Cricket paused, probably answering another call on her end. Then she came back. “At least two shooters. Location unknown. Reports are confused but mention shots fired from within and outside the building. Instructions are to shelter in place. Barricade and hide.”

Indie observed the swelling population of the gym. She couldn’t count them all but knew the number had to be headed way past three hundred, maybe as many as four hundred.

“I’ll get a firm count as soon as I can.” Releasing her mic, Indie headed over to join Carrie, who urged stragglers to hurry inside. She forced herself to breathe evenly, to channel the adrenaline into focus rather than panic. These kids—and the adults probably—needed her steady.

She started counting students in groups of ten. No injuries. Yet.

Cricket’s next update was the one she wanted to hear.

“Response teams are on the way.”

As Indie pushed her way through the chaos to relay Cricket’s update to Carrie, two students dragged a classmate into the gym.

The boy clinging to his friends shook with sobs, his hair matted with blood.

Yet had turned into now.